Reconciling United Methodists of Texas Conference unreservedly supports Bishop Karen Oliveto of the Mountain Sky Area. We pray her episcopacy will be long and fruitful—resulting in many disciples of Jesus Christ for the transformation of the world.

In Genesis 1 we read, “In beginning, God created the heavens and the earth, the earth was a formless void and darkness covered the face of the deep, while a wind from God swept over the face of the waters.”

I grew up in a Methodist Church in a small town in North Carolina. When I reached my pre-teen years, I moved from the children’s programming to Methodist Youth Fellowship, or MYF. Most of the time, I felt comfortable with the lessons they were teaching. Except for the talks about sex and sexual purity.

In her book The United Methodist Deacon, Rev. Dr. Margaret Ann Crain explains, “Because deacons are also ordained but usually do not do what elders do, we are challenged to think about ordination as identity rather than function.”

On June 24, 2017, delegates to the Unitarian Universalist Association’s General Assembly in New Orleans overwhelmingly voted to approve language to make Unitarian Universalism’s second source more inclusive of people of all genders.